Matteo F. Rastivo

Matteo Frank (Matt) Rastivo passed away on June 8, 2022, after a long brawl with Primary Progressive Aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease. He died as he lived—working hard to stay in the game. He was 87 years old.

Matt denied, then resisted, then out-and-out battled his condition. During the end stage, he defied prognosis and survived COVID-19 before vaccination, miraculously emerging from a 30–day ICU stay to live another 18 months. His transition to death was announced four times, but Matt kept rallying. Even that last week, when hospice said 24 hours, Matt persisted for 5 days. His family and friends will carry with them the legacy of a man who ran hard in the storms that came for him.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, Matt was raised by his maternal grandparents Francesco (Frank) and Maria Celentano, alongside his mother Lena’s seven siblings after she passed away at 28 years old when Matt was barely 5. As an adult, he had almost no memory of Lena, but right up until the last month of his life, in defiance of Alzheimer’s, images of his Uncles Ralph, Joe, Dominic, Tony, and Mikey, and Aunts Fanny and Marge were among the few that he still recognized.

Matt loved sports, reading, and history. He was a diligent student and a Boy Scout (although also an admitted smart aleck). He played baseball and ran track at school. As a young man, he was a Golden Glove boxer.

In the early 1960s, Matt married Beverly Edwards, who had also lost her mother as a young child, and within a few years they settled on Long Island to raise three children, forging a little cocoon of self-reliance, spun in part from their shared, irreversible deficit—no parents.

Matt had an unrivaled work ethic. He built a career in procurement at Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage, where he worked for well over 30 years. In his early days at Grumman, he earned a degree studying at night to secure promotion. Despite having a solid livelihood, he was still taking on whatever side work he could well into his 30s—night manager at the local pharmacy, weekend waiter at Gene’s French restaurant, early morning delivery driver for Entenmann’s—and even in retirement he consulted for Northrop Grumman as long as he was able.

He taught his sons to play sports, and he coached a little basketball and a lot of baseball—even serving as President of the Three Village little league. Many a summer night was spent at the ball field or in the backyard, working with his son on pitching. Matt was a lifelong, avid, rabid Mets fan—hanging in there, cheering them on in his stubborn way, no matter what, season after season. He also loved to watch his grandsons play lacrosse.

Despite all the working and coaching, Matt was always reading something—usually two or three somethings— in his "spare" time. He made his books covers from supermarket paper bags and he kept a pile in the trunk of his car for whenever he had a few minutes to read. He brought his daughter to the bookstore and library with him and let her wander and pick her own stories. He never *told* her to love books. He just took her to where they lived and let it happen.

Later in life, after retirement from Grumman, he moved to Virginia, close to his daughter, and he and Beverly enjoyed life at their condominium on a golf course. Later, they moved to their daughter’s home as Matt’s disease progressed.

Matt loved comedy and sought laughter until the end—slap stick movies and witty sitcoms and (later in life) live comedy shows—and he was happy to play silly games with his grandchildren and great grandchild—or play jokes on them. Soon after his devastating diagnosis, Matt pretended not to recognize his adult grandsons at Christmas, then laughed at their stricken expressions when he revealed that he was just kidding.

Matt’s beloved wife Beverly predeceased him by three months. He is survived by his children Kenneth O’Keefe, Russell Rastivo (wife Cindy), and Leigh Rastivo Nolan (husband Mike); and his grandchildren Cori, Angus (Matthew), Steven, Ian, Michael, Alexandra, and Aleah; and a 14-year-old great grandchild who loved to watch cartoons with him. His family will always remember his easy smile and his busy ways.

There will be a Memorial Mass for both Matteo and his wife Beverly at Infant Jesus RC Church on July 16, 2022.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.obdavisportjefferson.com for the Rastivo family.